Owing to Rossini’s activity in his new position, which he held for only eighteen months, the technical standard of performance was decidedly raised. Among the works he produced were _Il viaggio a Reims_ (1825), heard again three years later in a revised and augmented version as _Le Comte Ory_, and Meyerbeer’s _Il Crociato_, the first work of that composer to be heard in Paris. In 1826 Charles X appointed him ‘first composer to the king’ and ‘inspector-general of singing in France,’ two sinecures the combined salaries of which amounted to twenty thousand francs. Rossini, who had a keen sense of humor, is said to have been in the habit of stopping in the street, when some pavement singer raised his voice, or the sound of song floated down from some open window, and whispering to his friends to be silent ‘because the inspector of singing was busy gathering material for his next official report.’ The leisure thus afforded him gave him an opportunity to revise and improve his older works, and to devote himself to a serious study of Beethoven. Between 1810 and 1828 he had produced forty distinct works; in 1829 he produced the one great score of his second period, which in most respects outweighs all the others. It was to be the first of a series of five operas which the king had commissioned him to write for the Paris opera, but the overthrow of Charles X made the agreement void in regard to the others. The libretto of _Guillaume Tell_, which adheres closely to Schiller’s drama, was written by Étienne Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, and further altered according to Rossini’s own suggestions. Though the original drama contains fine situations, the libretto was not an ideal one for musical treatment. Musically it ranks far above any of his previous scores, since into the Italian fabric of his own creation he had woven all that was best in French operatic tradition. The brilliant and often inappropriate _fioriture_ with which many of the works of his first period were overladen gave way to a clear melodic style, befitting the simple nobility of his subject and better qualified than his earlier style to justify the title given him of ‘father of modern operatic melody.’ No longer abstract types nor mere vehicles for vocal display, his singers sang with the dramatic accents of genuine passion. The conventional _cavatina_ was deliberately avoided. The choruses were planned with greater breadth and with an admirable regard for unity. The orchestration developed a wonderful diversity of color, and breathed fresh and genuine life through the entire score. The overture, not a dramatic preface, but a pastoral symphony in abridged form, with the obligatory three movements--_allegro_, _andante_, _presto_; the huntsman’s chorus; the duet between Tell and Arnold; the finale of the first act; the prelude to the second and Matilda’s aria; the grandiose scene on the Rütli, the festival scene and the storm scene are, perhaps, the most noteworthy numbers.